Kyuubey blinks at you, before nodding, turning to face you fully. "Kyoko Sakura is, as you may have surmised, currently undergoing full-body regeneration. Barring any unforeseen complications - of which I'm certain there will be little of, if not none at all - she will be up and about in two, perhaps three days at the most."

One of your dolls hisses at Kyuubey, and for a wonder, the Incubator glances towards its direction - before blinking and then returning his gaze back to you. Continuing as if nothing untoward had actually happened. "As for the rest of your squad - namely Wendy Cooldown, Mami Tomoe, and Miki Sayaka - they are currently being treated for their injuries in our medical facilities. Rest assured that they are also receiving the best care this Officio can provide for its members. In fact, if I remember correctly, your Equerry only needed a rudimentary checkup and a Soul Gem purification before discharging herself. Explaining that she had to run errands for a particular, ah, dildo."

He tilts his head to the side, in that way that he does when he's puzzled. "I don't suppose you know anything about that, Matsuda?"

Eh? N-no. Well...maybe. You asked her to smuggle in a few things for you. Nothing illegal or anything, just some stuff to make your detainment a bit more livable.

"...You are not being detained, Matsuda." Kyuubey replies after a long moment, something approaching annoyance and resignation coloring his usually inflectionless, emotionless voice. "This is only a temporary containment measure for the unexpected results of the Prophet operation - and I do stress the word 'temporary'. We proceed as planned, simple as that. Once we figure out just what exactly Ahriman did to you, and a way to conceal it - if not reverse it completely - then you can resume your duties as my Warmaster."

The white furry creature then bows its head in a surprising and genuine gesture of humility. "Until then, know that your staying in this particular Silent Room not only contributes directly to the future operation and safety of this Officio, but also helps us get to the bottom of whatever happened much more quickly." You must have looked skeptical for him to add, '...and I'll turn a blind eye to whatever supplies Miki Sayaka smuggles into this Silent Room. So long as it helps you stay inside for as long as we need you to."

...Well, alright. That'll be a huge help. And you understand your situation a bit better now, allowing you to stop feeling like you're about to be double-crossed into an early retirement.

There are other things you want to ask him - like Yuma's death, and how it's left your Officio without a Culexus to rely upon, and what will be done with Oriko herself - but you let them go unasked for now. Whatever you feel for Kyuubey, there's no denying that the little bastard has a lot on his plate right now, and most of the shit piled into it is exactly your doing. Chances are he already has those two handled, anyway.

"...Chitose Yuma will be missed," Kyuubey suddenly says, out of the blue, as if reading your mind - and you blink as he shakes his head. "Finding a replacement who would be able to handle her responsibilities with even half her efficiency and dedication will be difficult, but not impossible. As for Oriko herself, Mami has suggested that we keep her in custody for now, to see how she's fared from spending all that time in the Akashic Realm, besides being possessed by Ahriman herself. Depending on her, we may be able to simply gloss her memories over the entire thing and let her live the rest of her life as a civilian, or we may go with a preventative contracting. Just to tie up loose ends, and everything." There's the faintest hint of smugness in that feline smirk of his. "Are you satisfied, Matsuda?"

Okay. So he did have them handled. ...Fucking cat. Yeah, you're satisfied for now.And if you're honest, a bit more reassured about the entire thing, too.

"Always be ready to allay a subordinate's fears and insecurities, Matsuda, and you'll keep an organization together no matter how what comes your way. It doesn't matter if your answers are palatable or not, so long as you have some to give." The cat-like creature from outer space glances back towards the doors leading out of your Silent Room. "Now, if there's nothing else, I really do need to take my leave, Matsuda. Things need to be doing."

...Just one last one, then. If the Silent Room isn't really working on you as it is right now, then what's stopping you from breaking out of here...?

"...Actual consideration and concern for your own Officio, I hope?" Kyuubey turns to look at you askance. "...is what I'd like to say, but in the interest of being honest with one another, Matsuda, I'll say that I've taken my own precautions against that."

He taps a paw against the cold metal grating that made up the floor of the Silent Room itself. "Should Regalia detect that you are attempting to escape its four walls without any prior authorization, then it will engage its highest Anti-Magic setting and direct the full force of it towards you, Matsuda, and will do so until the containment squads arrive."

...Squads, he says. Not squad.

"Again, only as a precaution, nothing more." He nods at you one final time, before making to leave. "Consider this some mandatory time off, Matsuda. Rest, reflect on things, and try not to make any more ruinous pacts with suspicious young women while you're here. And do put some clothes on, you'll catch your death of cold in here."

How do you respond?

[]No promises, Kyuubey.[]...I'll try. Sorry about wanting to break your skull open with this table leg.[]Let him go, and try not to feel shitty about this raw deal you've been given.

>>38928972>[]...I'll try. Sorry about wanting to break your skull open with this table leg.>[]Let him go, and try not to feel shitty about this raw deal you've been given.>[]OtherPick up cat. Give him 'mandatory' stroking before setting him free.

>>38928972[x]...I'll try. Sorry about wanting to break your skull open with this table leg.[x]Is Haruka going to be a problem?We put the lives of all of our loved ones, every Magical Girl, and all associated personnel in the Officio in danger because of our stupidity. The least we can do is try to not get them killed.

>>38929002Way to make him feel disgusted, Anon. What next, getting him handled by tentacles, leaving a coating of slime on his fur?Oh but no, it couldn't be that, since what you suggested is far worse than what I just said.

>raw dealEveryone is bending over backwards to protect us from the consequences of our stupid choices, at great risk to their own lives, which we've endangered, and that's a raw deal?It's a raw deal to everyone else but us, considering that they're all going to be killed if anyone outside of our Officio finds out about our wings.

>>38929612It's already done. We've gotten ourselves to the point where as soon as someone outside of our closest aides sees our wings, a kill order will be put out on Misaka, Kharn, Mami, Midori, Wendy, Charles, Iori, Ruri, and every single Magical Girl in the Ninth.No loose ends.

After a long and awkward moment, you also belatedly apologize for wanting to break his skull open with a table leg. The table leg that you'd been holding ever since he confessed about lying to you about Akemi Homura.

"Considering the other ways you could have reacted, Matsuda, I'd say blunt force trauma with a piece of domestic furniture was the best-case scenario I could have hoped for." You hear the amusement in your Incubator's voice as he finally takes his leave, the heavy metal doors of the Silent Room closing behind him. "Apology accepted, in any case. Rest easy, Matsuda."

You watch the doors for a couple more seconds before letting out a sigh. Well, you know more about the situation and you don't feel as helpless, but...Christ, if what Kyuubey's saying is true, then you've put your entire fucking Officio in danger. Just one slip-up, one accidental witness, one overacting mutant cat bastard - and the Ninth could end up just like the Third. If not murdered down to the last Magical Girl, then its upper hierarchy executed and the bulk of it disseminated to the other Officios. From the first among equals, to being reduced to a footnote in the pages of history.

You shake your head as you hug yourself in the cold and lonely chill of your Silent Room, your wings bristling against your naked back. ...No, Kyuubey knows what he's doing. Little bastard cat's said as much, right? Knowing him, he'd probably even thought of what to do just in case something like this happened. You've heard from Mami that it was one of his hobbies - concocting worst-case scenarios in his head and then coming up with a way to resolve those scenarios to his benefit. You just hope that he managed to come up with this exact scenario, as fucking far-fetched and incredible as it is.

...Jesus. Listen to yourself. Trusting your fucking mutant cat bastard boss this much. Your past self would have laughed. Well, no, she'd probably just be really disgusted, both at your naivete and your fashion sense. ...Actually, Past You would totally shoot Future You too, if only to try and prevent such a fate from occurring.

You let out another sigh, before finally transforming again. Wincing as your slutty cocktail dress drapes itself over you once more, the top clinging to your form with a zeal that went past the border of tenacity and into something that could only be described as 'rapey'. ...Christ, you even miss the pantyhose riding up after every transformation, if only for the comfort of it actually being there to ride up.

Now there's nothing, except for your own modesty and your dubious ability to remember to actually sit with your legs together rather than crossing them or whatever. This fucking costume--

"...Are you having problems with your current state of dress, good for nothing?" IBARI suddenly pipes up, nearly making you jump in surprise at her sudden outburst. Fucking dolls, you almost forgot they were there with you! "I mean, you've been grumbling about it for nearly ten minutes now, so I thought if--"

"What are you talking about, Ibari?" USOTSUKI drawls from the corner, porcelain hands on hips, grinning head cocked to the side. "Are you suggesting that our perfect, our beautiful good-for-nothing actually HATES the sublime dress that she herself made with the death of a goddess? The cloth cut from the Veil Behind Reality, and the thread for the delicate stitching the interwoven fates of Magical Girls who fell to despair? And with each feather torn from the dismembered wings of a fallen angel? How ridiculous! How absolutely preposterous--"

"It's just a stupid dress," REIKETSU grumbles as she looks up from her gaming device. "Our good for nothing can hate it if she wants. And stop being so unnecessarily dramatic, Uso. No one's amused, and no one's buying."

"Are you calling me a liar?"

"It's literally your name."

"Well I never...!"

"A-anyway, yes, as I was saying, good for nothing, if you'd like..." IBARI glances at her now-bickering sisters, before turning back towards you with a furtive look upon her porcelain features. "...We can try and scrounge something up for you to wear, at least until you get your old costume back."

...They can do that?

"Of course!" IBARI smiles her wide, slit-cut smile. "We are here to serve you, good for nothing! Something that doesn't make you look like a ten-yen whore turning tricks behind the convenience store dumpster would be a cinch for us, even if we are an incomplete set!"

Well, that's...sure. You don't really see any reason why not. Something a bit warmer would be perfect at the moment, really...

...No, it's actually not just ticking, it's fucking twitching. Jerking against its locked axis with every tick, with the arrythmic staccato of jammed clockwork.

"...Oh, dear." Ibari blinks, before stepping back. The rest of the dolls also doing so a moment later, their eyes wide at your shield. "M-Manuke? How is the--"

"S-she...she really wants to see the Good for Nothing," The red-haired doll with the cute beanie murmurs, her voice quivering. "...I...I would really recommend against ignoring her now...!"

Shit. SHIT!

Not now! Christ, not while you're still figuring things out...!

What do you do? Christ, Pinky seeing you like this...this is going to get really fucked up in a hurry.

What do you do?

[]Ask your doll collection to give you something to wear IMMEDIATELY, then visit Pinky.[]Visit Pinky now. There's no time to waste. []Ignore her. You can't risk facing her looking like this, for fuck's sake.

>>38930223>[x]Ask your doll collection to give you something to wear IMMEDIATELY, then visit Pinky.I don't think we CAN ignore her, she might just force it and be more pissed if we don't come voluntarily

>>38930245>>38930252>>38930257>>38930293So why do you want to take the worst of the listed choices, one which even the good-for-nothing knows is a bad idea?I mean, this sounds like it's on par with "Bring QB into Timestop to meet Pinky" and "Give Ahriman our Soulgem".Why do you want to be such a fuckup?

>>38930223>[]CUT OFF YOUR WINGSwait no she'd still know something was up by the bleeding stumps>[]CUT OFF YOUR ARMno the shield would probably still be able to crank anyway>[X]Visit Pinky now. There's no time to waste. Fuck it. Employ minimum fucks. Let's do this.

>>38931150>if she knows who Akuma Homura isConsidering that she talked about how we caused her pain and killed her before, and she's going to cause us pain and suffering as part of her revenge against us, I think it's safe to say that she knows.

...Fuck. Alright. Alright, you know how to handle this. You know how to get out of this in one piece. ...Well, hopefully, anyway.

You turn towards your cowering doll collection just as you begin to tear off the cocktail dress, allowing the loose feathery material to pool your feet. Telling them in no uncertain terms that you need new clothes to wear and you need them RIGHT FUCKING NOW. Whatever it is, you don't care, as long as you don't go into this impromptu meeting looking like the one thing Pinky has the biggest fucking murderboner for.

"B-but we haven't even started measuring!" IBARI protests, her eyes darting from the twitching Shield on your arm to the discarded pile of midnight-black cloth around your feet. "A-and then there's designing it, then picking out the right fabric, and--"

For fuck's sake! You manage to stop yourself from screaming at them. Just...anything! Anything at all! You'll even take that fucking platypus costume that the one with the fluffy hair was knitting together earlier!

"But to meet the Blessed Lady with--" IBARI's eyes go wide at this, before shaking her head. "N-no, no, things aren't that desperate!" She looks up at you, a determined expression on her face. "I...I think your old dress should work, good for nothing! Good thing we never threw it out!"

A bundle of carefully-wrapped black clothes falls into your arms, and you don't hesitate in unfolding it and throwing it on. It's...huh. It kind of feels like your old costume, with the bow tie at the collar and the frilly lace going around the hem of the knee-length skirt.

Gah, no time for that! You shake your head as you quickly get everything ready, patting your dress down and straightening your sleeves. Your wings...well, you can't exactly wear your dress over the skeletal pinions, so you instead fold them against your back as tightest and as closest as you can manage. Compressing them as much as you can behind you. With any luck, Pinky'll be too busy noticing your new threads to notice that you have, in fact, actual fucking wings. Maybe she'll think they're just cosplay accessories or something.

Just as you make to ask your dolls about how you look is when the Shield on your arm finally snaps. The furiously spinning wheels inside gnashing, crunching into each other as it turns itself on its axis a full 180 degrees with such force that you briefly wonder if it had broken the arm it was clamped onto in the process somehow. It certainly fucking felt like it.

But before you can check, you realize with a cold start that your Shield didn't exactly work the way you're used to it working. Your eyes going wide with this revelation, all color draining from your face.

Instead of simply stopping time - instead of turning the world around into that frozen, black-and-white realm where a grinning, insane demon with pink hair constantly hounded you - it had transported you somewhere different. Somewhere that eerily reminded you of the Akashic Realm - a place with no light and no warmth, only the stench of corpses and the sensation of walking on dead bodies with every step.

And in the middle of that lightless, lifeless place is a dining table, big enough to seat more than a handful of people. The kind of table with the expensive white linen draped over it, and even more expensive silverware piled on top of it. The sort of table you would only see in expensive restaurants where you had a spoon and fork for every conceivable dining scenario.

And at the head of this table is Pinky, wearing her usual grin. A knife and fork gripped in both hands, a comically-oversized bib tied around her neck. The words 'Let's Eat!!!' printed on the bib itself, in bright festive letters. It seems she hasn't noticed you coming around just yet.

Right. Here you fucking go, you think to yourself as you slowly walk forward.

If you fuck this up now, well, at least you'll die knowing you tried everything you could.

"Oh, Homura-chan!" Pinky exclaims as she seems to notice your arrival, brandishing a knife at your general direction in lieu of waving you over. "C'mere and pull up a seat! You're just in time for the main course, and--" She stops here as her eyes, still the same roiling, inky black of midnight, from sclera to pupil - widens at you. The moment of stunned surprise stretching over what feels like eternity, the dangerous uncertainty of the situation freezing your breath in your lungs.

"...Oh, wow!" The eldritchian horror finally finds her tongue again, grinning once more. Her forest of blood-pinked sharpened teeth in full display. "Is that a new dress or something, Homura-chan?! That's so cute! It really brings out how much of a lameoid you actually are at parties!" She giggles - no, CACKLES - at her own joke, banging her utensil-wielding fists on the table. It takes her a few moments to calm down, and by the time she does, she's wiping blood-tears away from her cheeks with the back of her gloves.

"Kidding aside, that really is a cute dress, Homura-chan!" Pinky leans forward on her elbows as you finally take your seat from across her. "I don't even remember you dressing up for me like this, all those times I asked you to visit me! Usually you'd just be in your shitty schoolgirl-themed costume as always!"

Her pleasantly-surprised expression, already rendered into a horrific visage with her lethal features, turns into a sly, knowing glance. "Or is it that Homura-chan is trying to get points from me, now?! Hahaha, you dog, Homura-chan!"

She waves her fork at you this time, in a gesture akin to wagging a forbidding finger at a pet. "You're not supposed to fall in love with the villain here, you know!"

Well. It seems that Pinky hasn't noticed what happened to you just yet.

It's just up to you to make sure this continues. Don't fuck it up. Seriously.

How do you respond?

[]Distract her through flirting. "...Guilty as charged. I'll do what I like, though."[]Distract her through deflection. "...Just thought I'd try something different, that's all. Don't overthink it. What's the main course?"[]Distract her by being sort of honest. "It was this or a slutty cocktail dress."

>>38932405[x]Distract her by flinging around spaghetti and clumsily flirting. "I was thinking that I should try to look nice when meeting you and then the shield was clicking and I wasn't done picking a dress or shoes or anything and now I'm here and you think it's cute?"An entertained Faust is a distracted Faust that won't kill someone we love yet.

Remember the last time we tried being honest? That's right, a few minutes of inhumane pain coupled with the sensation of exploding whilst conscious.And, may I remind you;>It's just up to you to make sure this continues. Don't fuck it up. Seriously.I'll repeat.>IT'S JUST UP TO YOU TO MAKE SURE THIS CONTINUES.>DON'T FUCK IT UP.

>>38932575>But that was rather old fashioned. Didn't feel quite... meYou do know that she doesn't give a fuck about the Chiaki Matsuda personality and whether we agree with the TTO or not, right? Trying to distance ourself from our past doesn't matter to Pinky, because to her we must still bear the weight of our previous incarnation's crimes.

>>38932405>[X]Distract her through deflection. "...Just thought I'd try something different, that's all. Don't overthink it. What's the main course?"I think in this case honesty is probably going to fuck us up

>>38932777>If I'd had my way I wouldn't have been here at allIf you didn't notice, we got pulled in here before we even turned the shield.We would have been pulled here anyway, whether we wanted to or not. So considering that we would have wound up here regardless of what you wanted, you'd still be making a bad situation worse.

>>38932811>but that seems to run counter to the setting imo.In my opinion, the setting is more about not doing something stupid to satisfy your own desire to know the truth, because you can frequently fuck everything up if you focus on the truth to the exclusion of the world around you.

>>38933907I pilfered the method from a (sadly dead along with the old forums) thread on byuu.net on developing CRT shaders for retro emulators. It's really just masking each channel into columns, adding a 'scanline' mask (blank one row in every three), Stack a few copies with Dodge blending then blur the shit out of them to varying degrees to approximate phosphor 'bloom'. In no way physically accurate, but it looks nice.

You try to keep this stroke of luck going by distracting Pinky with flirting.

Yes, this is what it's come to. To prevent your face from being ripped off and eaten by a blood-maddened goddess, you have to awkwardly flirt with her before she notices what she's supposed to get mad at you about.

"...Guilty as charged," you try to reply as off-handedly as you can, leaning back on your chair in your attempt to sound...well, cool. Like how you imagine flirting to be. "I'll do what I like, though."

Yes. you're dead. You're SO DEAD. SO FUCKING DEAD--

"G-guilty...?" Pinky echoes, her eyes wide as the fork she's been brandishing freezes in midair - and it's here that you see her blush. Her pale, corpse-white skin reddening at her cheeks, giving the illusion of vitality in this all-too human display of embarrassment. Making this insane eldritchian horror in the faded pink dress and twintails resemble the girl that she'd once been, and not as the monster that she was.

For a moment, it looked as if your gambit failed, with the pink-haired despoiler falling silent once more.

But then--

"...You're crazy, Homura-chan," Pinky mumbles as she lowers her head, still reddening. "That's....that's crazy talk, you know? All this time I'm trying to make you hate me...why can't you just do the right thing for once instead of trying to be cool all the time...? What do I have to do for you to take me seriously...?"

Christ. Pinky...you'd really find her cute if it wasn't for the whole fucking eldritichian thing. Oh, and the huge murder play to kill you and your loved ones in an orgy of Golden Weapon fire and blood.

"B-but forget about that! Let's start over! Delete, delete!" Pinky cries, brandishing her utensils like a recalcitrant child would when faced with a bowl of vegetables they clearly did not want to consume. She's still blushing when she forces herself to face you. "A-anyway, Homura-chan! I wanted to check up on you today, see how you were doing with the fetch quest and everything! It feels like it's been AGES since we started, and you've only just got your FIFTH Golden Weapon!"

She shakes her head. "I mean, I don't have anything against taking your time or doing things at your own pace, Homura-chan, but there is such a thing as being efficient with this kind of thing, you know?" Seemingly having recovered from her brief clash with human emotions, Pinky is back to her grinning self, even deigning to reach over and pat you comfortingly on the shoulder. "I'm gonna have to ask you to try just a bit harder, Homura-chan. We want this story finished before the sun dies, you know!"

You open your mouth to reply, before something you see stops you in your tracks: a large and monstrous shadow coming into focus near the table, carrying what appears to be a large, covered platter meant for the main course in a three-course meal. As it's placed on the table, Pinky's mood changes again, this time clearly hyped for the meal. The shadow trots off immediately into the surrounding darkness, dismissed by a word from the eldritchian horror.

"Ah, here we are, then! Just in time, I thought I was gonna go hungry tonight, too!" Pinky cackles as she pulls away the platter cover. Revealing the unmistakable corpse of Ahriman herself, cold and dead and lifeless. Slack, gaping holes where her eyes should be.

That's...she's going to...?

"OH, have some too, Homura-chan!" Pinky grins at you, either completely misinterpreting the disgust and revulsion in your voice or simply just flat-out ignoring it. "Please feel free! You helped prepare this after all, and I'm not that greedy! Besides, I'm on a diet!"

Without warning - with no preamble at all - the pink-haired demon reaches over and RIPS the corpse's left arm off its shoulder. Not even cutting it - Pinky simply gave the wrist a twist, then an jerk, before it came apart from the body's shoulder with a wet, juicy crack.

And then - just when you thought it couldn't get any worse - Pinky started eating. Biting into the fleshy limb she'd just taken, ripped kimono cloth and everything. Each crunching bite leaking gore and cascading blood down her front, splotching the cheerful party bib crimson.

"Anyway, like I was saying, Homura-chan, ya gotta speed it up a bit, you know?" Pinky says through a mouthful of fresh gore. "We're not getting any younger, and there's an awful lot of people who want to see this through! So maybe next time, stop - ulp - stop fucking around too much with your fat groupies and just go out! Who knows, maybe we'll actually get some decent arc progression out of it, too!"

You have no idea what she's saying, now. You stopped listening the moment she started to eat.

And truth be told, you find your mouth watering at the sight of it. At the sight of the remainder of the meal before you.

The broken, lifeless corpse of a Chosen. A Fallen Angel.

Beckoning you to give it a little taste.

What do you do?

[]Resist it.[]Give in.[]Focus on Pinky instead, and ask her about the corpse. You know who it is, but...

>>38934125>[]Focus on Pinky instead, and ask her about the golden weapons

"Well, in the interests of speeding things up, I don't suppose you could give a few hints as to where I can find the rest? I mean, to be perfectly honest, it's trouble enough getting my hands on these Golden Weapons when I do know where one is. Having to figure out where to even begin to look in the first place is kind of just extra busy work."

>>38934125>[X]Resist it.Definitely a bad idea. But this is probably a big choice. Stalling with the third choice won't make much of a difference, we'll either have to become corrupted and resist, potentially risking our lives.Possibly,>something along the lines of "I won't join you yet. I still have more corpses left to stack on that platter. I can't rest until the counts goes to nineteen."

>>38934224>we traded YUMA for THISAnd don't forget we also made Misaka, Midori, Wendy, Mami, Kharn, Souji, Charles, Iori, Rea, Kumatora, Enishi, Tiny Pete, Sayaka, Kyouko, all of the Girls of the Ninth, and even Noriko one step closer to being wiped out in a purge.

>>38934125>[x]Focus on Pinky instead, and ask her about the corpse. You know who it is, but...I think it is not a good idea to eat the flesh of Ahriman. Besides, cannibalism is not a good or logical option

First, and most importantly: we’ve added a new Questions and Answers section on the wiki! Some wiki folks are currently trying to archive Thread Q&A and Deculture’s Ask.fm Q&As on the wiki. They’ve also been categorized for easier search. The pages are currently under construction, but we’ve already uploaded a decent amount of anon questions. Check it out here:

http://wiki.magicalgirlnoir.com/index.php/Questions_and_Answers

-

Secondly, some of you may have already noticed this, but we’re starting to put some of the write-ups onto the wiki as well-- for easier reading, easier navigation, and better usage of images. Hopefully, we’ll get all write-ups onto the wiki some time in the near future. Here are some of the cool-looking writeup pages for the wikis:

>>38934433I wonder what would happen if we started monologuing to Pinky about we've caught glimpses of the Blessed Lady's former glory and how much we want to restore her to that form, while accidentally revealing the wings to her.

I bet that would turn out GREAT.

I love how Decu not only went a little bit meta in that last post, but also how fast he went from Pinky being cute and embarrassed to being a psychopathic, homicidal monster.

Thanks to Deculture for the thread letting me writeThanks to Wendy for letting me use Cosette and Aki, for the curse of sneezing sea urchins, for the idea that Madge emotionally abuses her girlfriend when she drinks too much, for introducing me to the term 'knifeplay' (no, not like that), and for a bunch of other stuffThanks to TwiceBorn for looking it overThanks to the people who're still reading. There'll be a proper Eleanor chapter next time